


Order Your Fine Horses

by Amettrine



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Royalty, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 15:43:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19321180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amettrine/pseuds/Amettrine
Summary: fai is a prince of a falling kingdom, kurogane is an assassin who refuses him something he's always wanted





	Order Your Fine Horses

**Author's Note:**

> something i found looking through my google drive, originally written in 2015. not sure if i'll add anything to this, it's been a long time since i was in this fandom, but maybe putting it up will inspire me

A night with no moon cast a silencing hand over the kingdom, leaving only the skittish flickering of candles within broken glass bulbs along the streets. This wordless scenery was seen by a prince within the castle on the highest point of the kingdom. His face was devoid of emotion, for the time he had spent in that castle in merely the last few days alone had shaken him to his core.  
Fai had been raised within this castle, but the slowing of his aging due to magic caused time to blur together, and only recently was he able to keep clear track of the days as they came and went, for each day before that had held jarring events.

The first day of the week presented him with the death of his mother, and the staff within the castle. It was not like a gift presented on a satin pillow, surrounded lushly by ornaments that shrouded the true gruesomeness of the occasion. No, their deaths were held in the dead of night, screams gagged and cut off so short that no one else could have heard them. They were dragged away, and only through the absence of anyone cleaning the blood left behind did the rest of the family learn what had happened. 

The second, third, and fourth days after that held the murders of his father, brother, and sister. Though he had felt no true familial emotion toward his father, the sight of his brother and sister’s bodies bagged and thrown away had kept him awake for days. He had seen the spots of blood on the outside of the sacks, all too simple for royalty, the faint outlines of their faces pressed against the cloth. Those images clung to him like trailing mists in his dreams- half-deteriorated faces crying his name, tears mixing with blood as they were cut down again and again in front of his eyes, pleading for him to save them but he was always powerless, motionless, useless.

The cold of the night did not find him, for a familiar chill had already settled in his heart. It had pierced its way instantly through satin, velvet, leather, his own flesh and blood, to wrap itself around his very soul. That cold chill rested deep in his eyes, now a blue pale like never before. They no longer shone, no longer reflected the light of the torches around him in the night. There was nothing left for him, it seemed; his family had been killed, his kingdom left in shambles, even his own partial immortality was working against him. It kept the aches of age out of his bones, but they still refused to work, refused to move. All that is life had left him was the hope that somebody could rid him of this life. 

The slightest of movements caused him to snap from his laments. He turned, not quickly, to find the source of the noise, but found nothing. The torches were still lit, the curtains behind him were still, the night before him held no sounds of importance. He muttered to himself and wrung his hands under his gloves, pacing as he walked along the balcony. His footsteps crashed with the blood in his ears as he reached the doorway, gloved hands shaking as it reached for the knob. 

Just as the fabric touched the brass handle, a hand lunged out and grabbed his shoulder, spinning him around and slamming him against the wall. Fai’s hands instinctively grasped a small dagger at his hip and brandished it against the stomach of his assailant, barely under their ribs. His free hand grabbed the hood over their head, yanking it back to reveal a face unlike any he had ever seen. 

The features of the people within his kingdom had always been fair and smooth, blond hair and blue eyes. The man before him, though, had an angular face, a rough jawline crossed with small scars. Fai’s eyes travelled upwards and found a crooked, perhaps once-broken nose, high cheekbones, and a furrowed brow that shielded narrowed, red eyes. His mouth was covered by the rest of his cloak, but a snarl could be seen beginning all the way from the bridge of his nose. They held each other’s eye contact for a while, silent, until Fai’s small breath warned him of the sharp edge of a dagger digging into his throat. Though it did not pierce its way through, he could feel the blade’s pressure against his windpipe, and a small trail of blood had spilled and fallen under the collar of his shirt. The man grunted wordlessly and balled his hand into a fist in Fai’s hair, pulling it back until Fai could barely see him over his cheeks. 

“Do it,” he whispered.

The man’s frown only seemed to deepen, yet he did not move.

“Go ahead." Fai’s eyes were cold. There was no smile on his lips. "Please." His dagger briefly drew a line down against a seam on the other man’s stomach before travelling upward and tapping against the thin armor against his chest, attempting to bring him back to the situation at hand. 

The man released his grip on Fai’s hair and stepped back, keeping his dagger unsheathed but pulling his hood back over his head. The rest of his cloak had fallen away from his mouth, and Fai could see him biting the inside of his cheek, his lips in a tight line as he stood frozen. Their stifled breathing hung in the cold air, and neither of them moved. Fai loosened his shoulders and made a point of putting his hand behind his back, movements that caused the other man to flinch and tense. 

“If it’s an invitation you want, you’ve been given one several times.” He raised his hands and looked at him, the smile that hung only on the corners of his mouth not reaching his eyes. Fai could see the man shift from one foot to the other, rearranging his fingers on his weapon as the reflections of the fire in his eyes darted from Fai’s face, to his empty hands, to the railing outside. 

Muttering something that the prince could not hear, he jumped onto the railing and disappeared.

The moment Fai has lost sight of him, he slumped against one of the columns, digging his fingertips into the intricate designs etched into the marble as his heart thundered in his chest. His brain was an indecipherable mess of emotions; fear, exhilaration, a shocking sadness, and another he couldn’t place. He stared at the flickering torch on the other side of the hallway, one hand reaching up to his forehead and brushing back the hair that had stuck in the sweat on his forehead. The ghost pain of the man pulling his hair tingled on his scalp, and he balled his own hand into a fist in the same place. He rubbed his dry eyes, looking out at the dark, silent town. Wordlessly, he drew his cloak tighter around his shoulders and walked down the remainder of the hallway, shutting the heavy doors and blocking out the night’s chill.

\--

A raid couldn’t be far off. The last two nights had been uncomfortably quiet, even more so than usual, after the abrupt appearance and disappearance of that strange man, and Fai was starting to get worried. He hadn’t eaten, hadn’t slept for maybe a week; every move he made screamed weakness and uncertainty. Even his reflection in the mirror showed an unfamiliar man. Fai knew that, despite how he clung to the wordless days spent pacing behind the castle walls, a small voice in the back of his mind preaching about his imminent death was growing louder. That voice sung a dirge ever moment of ever day, one he could never truly make out but heard behind his every breath.

Nevertheless, he had made no preparations. All he had done was wring his hands and walk, each step thundering through the hallways. At the end of both of those two days, something kept him returning to that balcony, to stand with absent eyes and pass his gloved hands over the remaining sensation of that dagger’s point against his throat. Something in his head, perhaps in his chest, repeatedly brought up the image of that man’s eyes burning into his own. The conviction, the scorching purpose, they brought heat back to Fai's eyes. He had no idea why.


End file.
